cupecoy

My long-term view is that everything will become a subscription. Institutional investors are buying up properties at insane levels, and it will eventually be impossible for private parties to compete, leading to more rentals and less private ownership. Most apps we use in our household are already on a subscription level only. Streaming is subscription. Kindle, VPN, Dropbox etc. too. More and more companies are pushing for lease-based contracts for items such as phones, cars, and bikes. The general shift is from owning to renting.

Ug_gle350_2020

Thanks for the thread. Quick question then, will the whole navigation and route guidance stop working if I don't renew (

Navigation Services) ?

Free entitlements expire for my car in dec 2022; just got an email.

superswiss

No it won't. You will still have basic navigation, but you won't be receiving map updates and live traffic anymore, so the maps will eventually be outdated and it won't reroute you around road closures and traffic incidents. Basically back to a dumb navigation we had in the 90s. You also won't be able to search for POIs online or send navigation destinations to the car from your phone. You'll have to painfully enter the destinations directly in the car. Actually never mind. Live traffic and map updates are separate subscriptions, so by not renewing Navigation Services you can no longer do the online POI searches and/or sending destinations from the phone to the car.

Ug_gle350_2020

Thank you so much!!! Precisely what I wanted to know.

jbizios

The frustrating thing is that they only offer annual subscriptions and they are non-transferrable.

I had to extend my lease a couple of months to wait for my new build, but my subscription services all expire at the end of this month and there's no way to extend or even transfer it if I did break down and buy the annual. Only thing I really use a lot is the Live Traffic and can live without it until the new car, but truly wish they had a more flexible subscription model.

superswiss

I believe they refund the remainder of the subscription if you sell/trade the car.

user 7208224

I have been using Android Auto for several months now. I prefer the nav and live traffic in Google Maps to that in the Nav. If I still have the GLE when my subscription expires, I doubt that I will renew it.

CarLover73

Same here - Apple carplay and wife's Android Auto have much better navigation than the built-in thingie in my opinion. I won't factor maps/navigation as a reason to renew the subscription either.

BTW, I also notice that if you use the 'native' app for route, you can even see the point-by-point guidance in your driver's central display area when you select 'Navigation' using the driver screen control button on the steering. i.e., if I use Apple maps, I can see the next turn/distance right in my driver's screen; but not if I use Googlemaps on iphone.

Ron.s

An AA update is out in Beta mode for the newest version…a major revision called Coolwalk.

https://www.androidcentral.com/apps-...-auto-coolwalk

zengshengliu

It is out, but I don't believe it is enabled for our car. I was part of the beta program and notice that coolwalk is not enabled (but turning on developer mode and enable "virtual" AA works). My understanding is that those car with touchpad and/or turning wheel based control (even when touch screen is available) still have the coolwalk disabled. I also have some navigation issue with touchpad since the new update.
But since this is a toggle on Google server end, they could enable it at any moment. They probably just want to wait until they find and fix it before enabling coolwalk for us.

Neurobit

I’m not on Android but that redesign looks really nice.

mikapen

Last week I went to a location that involved Coolwalk. I parked in the parking lot, walked to the location, and went home.

I was met by a text from Google Maps, asking me to pinpoint the front door, on the map they provided with the text. I slid the map around under the arrow, hit enter, and they thanked me.
​​​I guess its a Thing already. I'm not on a Beta.

Edit- it may have been an email, not text.

Lunarman

It is BS you have to pay for remote start. Ridiculous actually. Many cars have had remote start for 10-15 years. The fact BENZ charges for it is a crime. Just BS

MBguy013

That's the way of the future; subscription charges for everything.

mm9351

Another point for comparison; Tesla used to offer free premium connectivity on new vehicles for one full year. Now it’s free for 30 days. The subscription costs $10 per month; or $99 for a full year. It offers in car entertainment features eg Netflix ; Hulu etc. via a built in cellular network; and real time traffic visualizations along with satellite view maps. Really a good value at $99/ year.

z28lt1

The problem with Mercedes is they don't have remote start from the key fob. Most companies have charges for remote starting from a phone/app (although for some you can a long -- like 5 year trial). But they all have a free option to do it from your key fob as well. Mercedes is missing the free fob option -- no idea why.

I hate subscriptions, but I think its fair to have to pay for ones that cost the company money. Using an app to start your car requires the company to maintain servers to process the request as well as pay the phone companies for cellular data charges. While I'm sure that costs them very little, they do have some costs and paying for that use seems reasonable. Where this is going that you have to pay to use hardware already in the car is an entirely other thing in my mind.

mikapen

It's kinda like owning a cell phone and having to pay monthly to use it.
How about "commercial free" cable TV?

Subscriptions are growing everywhere. I don't think I'll ever get used to it.

Lucky 777

I agree with you. If the car remote had a start function, I could see them making a case charging for the convenience of not having to be line of sight with the car, but since they cleverly left that button off the remote, they have you cornered.

PandaSPUR

The cost will probably keep on going up. This is the way businesses work nowadays, especially smaller companies who are trying to aggressively gain market share.

Sell things at a loss to attract more customers, make up for the loss with VC funding, and then eventually flip the switch and start profiting off of higher subscription costs after you've trapped a decent customer base.

mikapen

Yep. The Gillette Razor business model. It was genius then and it's being monetized everywhere now.

Lucky 777

Sounds a lot like getting married to me... LOL

superswiss

As others have said I don't think it's unreasonable to have to pay a subscription fee or per-use charge for a service that requires the provider to run an infrastructure with ongoing operating costs. Basically any type of online service falls into that. They don't run themselves. Servers have to be maintained and communication costs have to be paid on an ongoing basis. Your cell phone requires a monthly subscription and you have to pay monthly for your home Internet service, utilities etc. for the same reasons.

As for remote start itself, outside of North America it pretty much does not exist. It's flat out illegal in Europe, so no German brand is gonna waste engineering resources on a key fob based remote start just for Americans. Leave that up to the aftermarket if somebody really wants it. I'm frankly surprised they even offer the app based remote start. Audi for example doesn't offer any remote start, not even app based.

TonyF61

Yes, I was rather taken back when I was told my X5 didn't have remote start because it was illegal in Germany. Didn't realize it is all of Europe.

PandaSPUR

Well damn, i learned something new today. I didnt know it was illegal in Europe.

schkar

Just learned today about the German law prohibiting remote start.

On a lighter note - german brands not wasting engineering resources on key based remote start
Mercedes had this function until 2019, BMW still got the key fob-based start in US. Mercedes dumped this option for their own reason.

Some reason all the German brands are too slow in embracing (and building) great software platform. They just catching up with Tesla. Long way to go!